Consumer Familiarity Is Key To ADAS Demand

AutoPacific’s Future Attribute Demand Study shows that consumers may lack awareness of ADAS features fitted to their cars because they haven’t experienced them while driving.

Some ADAS features, such as automatic high-beam headlights and adaptive cruise control with active lane centring often engage while driving, resulting in 62 per cent and 57 per cent respectively, of respondents who have heard of the features, saying they’ve also experienced them. Conversely, ADAS features that typically only intervene in an emergency manoeuvre, like cyclist and pedestrian detection or safe vehicle exit assist, have a much lower percentage of use – 23 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

Younger consumers under the age of 40 have higher awareness of all features surveyed compared to those 40 and older. The gap in awareness grows with age for several newer, more advanced ADAS features.

However, younger consumers’ familiarity with the features doesn’t translate into higher demand across the board for them when compared to older consumers. Also, when looking at feature reception by age group, there’s positive sentiment for several popular ADAS features. For example, 74 per cent of those under the age of 40 and 78 per cent of those over the age of 60 stated they liked using adaptive cruise control with active lane centring and stop and go.

Additionally, consumers over the age of 60 were more likely to report that many of the ADAS features they used made them feel much safer behind the wheel.

Having heard of and / or used a particular ADAS feature doesn’t guarantee retention and future desirability. This proved especially true with common ADAS features that closely track a driver’s behaviour such as speed limit warning and distracted or drowsy driver monitoring. Both ranked relatively highly in awareness (seventh and fifth, respectively) as well as real-world usage, but demand is low (16th and 11th respectively). These two features also have the highest percentage of dissatisfaction from users, with 18 per cent of those who have experienced distracted or drowsy driver monitoring and 17 per cent of those who have experienced speed limit warning saying they didn’t like the feature.

Forty-four per cent of respondents who have used speed limit warning felt neutral about it and 17 per cent didn’t like it, mostly due to annoying, nagging reminders and beeping alerts. In addition to complaints about it not working properly, nearly half of those who didn’t like distracted or drowsy driver monitoring complained of not being able to adjust or change the sensitivity. Drivers were also concerned about rearward automatic emergency braking – one of the most wanted ADAS features – with some users worried about the braking action being too abrupt or harsh and the sensing too sensitive.